Coptic Fasting takes up a great deal of the year and is basically vegan. Before Christmas, Copts abstain from meat and dairy products, but are allowed fish. In the Lent fast, which lasts fifty five days and is broken at Easter, not even fish is allowed. It also occurs at a time when there is no great variety of vegetables or fruits available, and so a creative approach to the preparation of beans, rice and lentils has to be taken. A great favorite is Bisara.

Bisara
½ kg fava beans
Water for boiling beans
2 large onions, chopped
2 bunches parsley, finely chopped
Salt, pepper and cumin to taste
3 garlic cloves
1 bunch coriander, chopped
3 tbsp oil
1 onion, chopped
1 tbsp oil

• Immerse fava beans, onions and parsley in water in a pot and bring to the boil over high heat.
• Lower heat and simmer for about 1 hour or until beans are tender.
• Drain and blitz in a food processor until smooth.
• Pour in a pot and simmer on medium heat until it comes to the boil again and season to taste.
• Mash garlic and mix well with coriander and sauté in oil over medium heat. Add to bisara mixture.
• Pour into a serving dish and let cool.
• Sauté second quantity of onion in second quantity of oil over medium heat until the onion is browned and spoon over bisara to garnish.

And as though this was not obvious enough, it is hard not to speculate that Coptic Lent may be one reason for the popularity of ful and falafel, both staple diets for the fasting Copt. Interestingly, and in a twist of converging likes, likeness and intertwined culture and fate, ful is the staple food of the Egyptian Moslem's diet as well, also often accompanied by falafel. Of course, the limited array of foods allowed in Lent accounts for the heavier dependence on falafel, which does not necessarily always accompany ful in Ramadan. In Lent, ful will often be eaten without oil, let alone any other form of fat, since a growing number of Egyptians are becoming health and cholesterol conscious, and because some devoted fasters will opt for a fast which is stricter, with only a water base for cooking.  More and more families are taking to fasting during Lent, than was once the custom in urban societies; part of the novelty owing to a renewed desire to assert the faith within a less secular society and part owing to the benefits derived all around. The novelty includes children fasting from an early age, also meeting the age at which a Moslem child is now encouraged to fast. Fast, or “seyami” food is the latest addition in food stores and pastry shops during Lent, candidly advertised in newspapers and flyers sent along with the morning papers

In the West, turkey is served at Christmas. In Alexandria, however, most Copts serve the typically Egyptian fatta, which is rice, bread, and meat drenched in vinegar and garlic, though members of the foreign communities – as well as those more Westernised – would continue to serve turkey while in Alexandria. Another typically Egyptian food offered at Christmas is beid meza’lel, which is boiled eggs fried in butter. Some houses would bake a Christmas cake, but all have to bake or buy the traditional biscuits and ka’ak that Moslems get in the Small Eid. These vary slightly in taste according to whether the recipe used has been westernized to use less ghee, sugar or a different filling other than the customary dates agwa (a staple of Middle Eastern cookery, and dessert also common in the Arab Peninsula), or pine nuts and pistachios as in the Syrian-Lebanese favorite stuffing, or agameya a more local generic version of loucoum which is also less costly. Ka’ak alsso makes for a lucrative number of catering services that have been made available to the Egyptian household, and especially so in Alexandria where possibly the very first caterer took the pioneering step. Although the day, if not days, of preparation and baking was itself considered a feast, with children and all the young women of the household partaking in the rites of kneading and pounding the dough, and of the finer travail of tweezing little designs on the pastry before it is put in the furnace, less time and effort is now put into all this manual labor. However it is considered second best to buy homemade ka’ak rather than commercial or prepackaged brand name varieties.

In Easter, too, Copts eat fatta and beid meza’lel, but they also eat the brioche introduced by the Greeks and Italians, and color the eggs western-style. For chrome yellow, onion skin is boiled in water, to which vinegar will be added and then the eggs boiled to earn their final shade; for red, hibiscus will be used. Often, too, a green leaf or other shape will be pasted onto the egg prior to dipping it in the dye and then allowed to boil before removing it to reveal a pleasant stencil effect. Many, however, do not know the origins of those practices, and would not question them with a raised eyebrow or consider them a threat to identity, either religious or national, which makes a feast like Sham el Nessim truly national, since both feasts are celebrated within a day of each other, and many would confuse the two.